Cross-posted at Education Week. Our schools of education are the weakest link in our public education system, and, of all the system's parts, they may be the hardest to change with the tools available to policy makers. Perhaps that's why we don't really even try. It is...
Cross-posted at Education Week. In my last blog, I made the case that the recent headline-grabbing strikes of school teachers are a response to an increasingly beleaguered occupation, which, under increasing attack in recent years, is proving to be increasingly unattractive to capable high school students,...
Cross-posted at Education Week. Little wonder the teachers are striking. The only question is why it took them so long. There are the stories about teachers unable to keep their families above the poverty line without working two or three jobs. And stories about the states...
Cross-posted at Education Week. The OECD reports that teachers' salaries in the United States now trail those of workers with similar education levels by an amount greater than the gap in ANY OTHER country examined by the OECD. They make about 60 cents for every dollar...
Cross-posted at Education Week The news now is full of stories about teacher shortages. States and districts are putting up giant billboards, and granting emergency certificates so that people who have not even finished their teacher education program can teach school and teachers certified to teach...
Cross-posted on Education Week I had a chance last month to sit-in on a fascinating meeting, a spirited exchange between the top officials of the Chinese education system and the American education system. Representatives of the U.S. Department of Education and the Chinese Ministry of Education,...
Cross-posted on Education Week For more than forty years, David Kirp has been one of our most incisive, original and refreshingly literate scholars writing about American education. Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America's Schools, Kirp's newest book,...